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5 months and ready to fold help!!

You are ABSOLUTELY correct on the salary issue. We know that’s an issue. The way we have it structured is as follows:

Husband - $0 (he gets a check but doesn’t cash them)

Me - $0

Son-in-law: GM $600.00 week

Daughter: Manager/Marketing $450.00 week

Assistant Manager: $320.00 week (this person is amazing she will work as many hours as we give her with no complaints. She could run the store by herself. She is a former Papa’s employee that we kept)

Shift Manager: $300.00 week (another one we wish we could clone - same description as above)

Definitely need to make daughter and husband hourly with possible bonus option on sales. We’ve discussed this with them but their bills match their income - typical young couple.
 
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If I might add a few more comments, I am the guy who made the comment on the cheese etc.

If you are getting Grande cheaper than the 4 cheese blend then you are getting raked on the other cheese. I would definately, without a doubt look on this site and compare what you are paying for high traffic items, like cheese and pep…and if your current supplier is gouging you, get another one. And if you cannot get another one, this might seem wacky, but I would rather take a trip to a larger town where a distributor runs routes to save money…seriously.

Another comment based on personal experience with what you are dealing with. A BIG chain of buffets in our area changed ownership and tried to re-invent itself, including adding things like chicken, potatoes etc to their line and BUMPING the price to the levels you are discussing…they remodeled a bunch of local stores and tried to make a go of it. This lasted a year and recently they closed down the majority of their operations, leaving open 1/3 of the stores they had with the new ownership and rollout.

WHY? Here is why and this is why you are struggling (IMO)

As Nick and others have stated, it is all about price point…you guys are looking at profits per guest when you dont have enough guests coming through the doors. Places like Ci-Ci’s charge less than even has been suggested and they are doing just fine. HOW? They keep the buffet line simple…people dont go to a pizza buffet to get this and that and the other…people go to places like Hometown Buffet to get a smorgasbord of mediocre stuff and your price point is near comparison to a place like that…but your buffet line isnt anything CLOSE to what you can get at a normal buffet. The local place after seeing their traffic count was diving with the NEW line, decided to drop popular items and skimp on labor and service…and now they are getting killed.

I would scrap the two kinds of pasta, go with a baked ziti and do away with the chix alfredo and the other pasta…give one choice. I would also do away with the cheese sauce and baked potato, and make fries or some wedges instead…I would also analyze what costs a ton on the salad bar and try to reduce it and keep it simple.

If you can reduce a few items, drop your price point and bring in traffic, then you can lower waste, lower labor costs, and PAY fixed costs.

Even if you have to take a loss on a slow night to drive sales, I would rather drive sales and pay some fixed costs and generate some excitement (thus the free kids meal with an adult purchase, or Tuesday Madness, 3.99 or somthing)…

Also consider things like frequent guest passes, pound the pavement on door hangers and school nights.

Try to focus on generating sales, increasing customer satisfaction rather than pinching pennies and having too broad of a line menu.

I would also OFFER extended delivery for an extra cost…people will understand.
 
I hope we are conveying that We wouldn’t offer this much time and effort if we didn’t care about you and your business. We do, and we see some simple changes that can have world-shaking differences in the general cash flow and functionality of your business. I ain’t saying it’ll be easy . . . . tough love never is. Love for the business, for the staff and for your kids.
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gobpile:
Son-in-law: GM $600.00 week

Daughter: Manager/Marketing $450.00 week

Assistant Manager: $320.00 week (this person is amazing she will work as many hours as we give her with no complaints. She could run the store by herself. She is a former Papa’s employee that we kept)

Shift Manager: $300.00 week (another one we wish we could clone - same description as above)

Definitely need to make daughter and husband hourly with possible bonus option on sales. We’ve discussed this with them but their bills match their income - typical young couple.
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This is enough information alone for me to figure out what the biggest problem is. If this weren’t family, it would be simple business decision. since it is family, I can understand the angst at making these decisions. All the other details really pale for me in light of this situation. Solve it, and much of the rest gets solved. (for $600 a week, that person should by golly be doorhanging every day for a couple of hours).

The least productive members of the management staff are getting paid the highest salaries, and could be generating hard feelings with the high productivity managers. Since it is a guaranteed salary, the motivation must be internal. I must be direct and say that if the bills match the income, then you have the PERFECT scenario for motivation. If, like the rest of the adult working world, their income depends on productivity and the work they are doing, they will have to step up or step out. Period. Given an hourly wage and bonus structure, their is a reason to get in the shop, put in the hours and find a way to build the business to pay those bills. I don’t know the decision-making structure, but this management is really the weakest part of your business . . . top heavey and the best managers get paid the least.

In my world, if someone or something is sucking up $1000 a week in weekly assets (like $15-20 an hour), then it better d@mn sure be carrying its weight and part of someone else’s since I am drawing nothing some months, and little on the others. Each of the two paid owners makes more in one week than I make most months. I am still committed after three years in the business, and know we are banging out the progress.

You really do have a light at the end of your tunnel if you use some of the experienced suggestions here. We aren’t at all experts of your business, and you are. You can see what is on point and what has zero chance of working in Southern Illinois, somewhat economically depressed towns.

Our town of about 2400 (almost doubled in the past 5 years) with median household income of $29,000 is making a challenge for us. We make decisions that are within the financial and business reality we have, and push to develop more business. We have increased gross sales by 65% to 70% over previous owner’s high year. We have grown every year and still growing. Takes time, sacrifice, effort, and sometimes struggle. I paid myself almost $9K last year, the 1st year of payroll for me.
 
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I also have hot tables that I put real food such as Hot Wings, BBQ wings which sells very good especially towalkins. Just something to think about.And chicken is very cheap.
 
I wasn’t recommending $4.99 WITH a drink, but advertise a $4.99 buffet…they would order a drink…it is all about the pice tag in the advertising…if they see $6.99, they probably wouldn’t respond as fast as if they see $4.99. Most people, at least around here, expect to be paying a additional cost for their drinks. Good luck keep up up to date on pluses or minuses.
 
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I agree with Tom, if you change your price on the buffet and advertise it at 4.99 people will be more likely to respond and come in. Let them know that they will be charged for their drink. Doing this eliminates two problems. One, the obvious one… If I were going to a pizza buffet and I saw one charged 6.99 and the other was 4.99 where do you think I would go? The other problem it eliminates is accounting for the beverages. I worked for a place that had buffet, we charged one flat rate that included the drink. We hardly ever made beverage cost because the POS system was not accounting for all the drinks sold with buffet. When we went pricing the buffet and drinks seperate that solved our problem. Also, if you charge for the drink and buffet together at one rate people who get water are paying for pop or tea that they did not get. The key to success with buffet is high volume. Get them in, get them out as fast as possible. Everyone has made some valid points. One question I had is if your son and daughter plan on being around for a while, you said they are in school. Will they leave once they graduate? Are they in this for the long haul? if not I would suggest talking about phazing them out and hiring people who would be willing to stay. Don’t close early, keep your hours lik e they are. If you miss one order or ten, it doesn’t matter you missed potential profit and potential return customers.
 
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65K is a lot of money. What besides the pos do you need it for? Did you lease the POS? If so, the interest is probably included in the total lease amount, borrowing money to pay it off only means that you’ll be paying double the interest.
 
I also I agree with advertising it for 4.99 … that’s way those big companies make good money by the way they make the product look… people are going to get a drink and by the time they done, u r goijg to make more money per person at the end. more than 6.50…somebody gave the example of places charge 299 instead of 300… that one cent makes a huge difference of how the price looks… also when you see cars advertized in the paper… example " come in, brand new 07 whatever for $99 a month" then u go in thinking u getting that deal BUT they tell u the car at that price was sold… but they have the same model in stock for $175 a month…guess what most of the time u go for it and also guess what…that 99 a month car was the same as the 175 but they made it look cheaper of course including the car dealers bull… my point is … is all about how u make it sound and it will draw people in and once they in they’ ll stay… did I make my point?? lol I confused myself there lol… good luck
 
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up23:
I also have hot tables that I put real food such as Hot Wings, BBQ wings which sells very good especially to walk-ins. Just something to think about.And chicken is very cheap.
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How about this idea ? Most chinese buffets will charge an additional $2-$5 for the buffet if you’re getting crab legs or some other higher end item.

What if you were to put wings on your dinner buffet and charge an additional price for people that want wings ?

Now your $4.99 base price is closer to $8-$9 per person when it’s all said and done. Bet you could live with that !

Advertised price $4.99pp

Wing add-on $2.99

Drink $1.25

Actual price $9.23pp
 
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I would suggest NOT putting hot wings on a buffet unless you plan to charge extra for each buffet. Wings are expensive and with the problems they have now, adding wings to the buffet would just make it TONS worse. When you have wings on a buffet, people load up and eat as many as you can put out there. What you suggest leaves a big hole, how do you know who paid for the wing buffet and who didn’t? when it’s busy you can’t keep track of that very well. What I suggest as far as the buffet goes is to put 14 inch pizzas on there and cut them into 12 slices. Have different varieties, if you have different crust types, have one of each crust type on there. If people want wings, come up with a price for a 5 wing add on, have them ready to go but not cooked then put them in as soon as someone orders them. Wings are too expensive to have on the buffet, unless you’re ponderosa and getting ten bucks a pop for your buffet.
 
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"5 months and ready to fold"You want to borrow money to pay your kids while the ship is sinking?Throw them overboard Im sure they can swim from what you describe this will right the ship.
 
"This is enough information alone for me to figure out what the biggest problem is. If this weren’t family, it would be simple business decision. since it is family, I can understand the angst at making these decisions. All the other details really pale for me in light of this situation. Solve it, and much of the rest gets solved. (for $600 a week, that person should by golly be doorhanging every day for a couple of hours).

The least productive members of the management staff are getting paid the highest salaries, and could be generating hard feelings with the high productivity managers. Since it is a guaranteed salary, the motivation must be internal. I must be direct and say that if the bills match the income, then you have the PERFECT scenario for motivation. If, like the rest of the adult working world, their income depends on productivity and the work they are doing, they will have to step up or step out. Period. Given an hourly wage and bonus structure, their is a reason to get in the shop, put in the hours and find a way to build the business to pay those bills. I don’t know the decision-making structure, but this management is really the weakest part of your business . . . top heavey and the best managers get paid the least."

BINGO!!!

When going over the schedule last night, my husband blew a gasget. Our son-in-law only scheduled himself for 21 hours next week. At $600.00 a week that would be $24.00 an hour . . .

After reading these posts, my husband went into the restaurant this morning and told both my daughter and her husband either take a pay cut or work the hours and still take a pay cut. This ensued a large row, some cussing and “I’m worth more than that” to which my husband fired my son-in-law on the spot. My daughter, backed my husband up, re-did the schedule and she is now scheduled for 55 hours next week and willing to go the extra mile (actually she has done a hell of a job on the marketing end).

The two managers that we have are wonderful and work like dogs. They could run the store by them selves (and did when it was Papa’s Pizza). They get it and they understand and are willing to work and do whatever it takes to make our restaurant a success. They also really like me and and my husband and know that if this restaurant starts taking off, they will be compenstated well with it.

My husband and I financed the whole restaurant. The final decisions are made by him, but since we had no experience at all and our son-in-law had 13 years experience in Pizza, we basically let him call the shots. Not any more.
 
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We own the POS but have a loan on it. We need the money to pay up the past due bills and have working capital money so that our sales can build up.

Today, our bottom oven went on the fritz so there’s another $600.00 we will have to put out this week to fix it. Thank God we have two Lincoln Impingers.
 
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We are actually running a super bowl special that they get a side of wings free with a large pizza purchase.

Actually, we sell a lot of wings. That is one item that people do order off the menu and order a lot of.
 
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Way to go gob… i think its time to start putting your foot down and this ist the first step. i’ve learned one thing in this business, and that is that anyone is replaceable. Business is Business… and the bottom line is what matters the most.
 
Way to go in firing that guy! I know he’s family, but it needed to happen. It appears that he wasn’t willing to sacrafice for the business. That will help to alieviate some of the problems with money. once you find what works on your buffet (there has been some good advice here) stick with it and keep it consistant. Volume and consistancy is the key to running a successful buffet. some other things you could try with buffet is make up some punch cards and have them buy a set number of buffets and then they get one for free. That has worked great for me when I ran a store with buffet. They get the buffet free, but still pay for the drink. (if you start charging the buffet and drink separate). Also, if you have a college anywhere near your store hit that hard with flyers. You could also get out and contact businesses and come up with some specials or coupons for businesses to use. Advertise in the phone book under banquets/party halls. That may help pick up your party room business. Do you have a family/kids night? if not, do that. Usually in the restaurant business it happens on tuesdays. Have a kids night where kids get free food with the purchase of an adult meal. Have activities for them to do, get one of your employees to dress up as a clown and work with the kids. You could have them make something, play games or watch movies. Kids night/family night has worked for me in the past. If you do have to take a menu price increase, increase things by ten cents or so. It may help and not very many people are going to notice such a small increase. Of course, leave your buffet at 4.99 plus a drink, but actually increase menu items. It usually takes a year (at the very least) to start making profit, sometimes longer. Keep at it, in five years you’ll have a booming business.
 
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You might want to change the locks, not kidding there.

I am impressed with all the replies and I hope we have helped a bit. If I were to summarize my thoughts, this is how I would focus-
  1. Drop the price point
  2. Drop the expensive side items on the line, INCREASE the pizza toppings and quality
  3. Run specials like crazy, as I suggested, the Monday night free kids, or even a 3.99 Monday
  4. Post all your expensive COGS items and see if you are paying too much for the big cost items
  5. Expand the lighting, put banners up promoting the 4.99 buffet and the 3.99 or free kids Mondays
  6. Pound away at the schools, offer local kids teams to raise money by having team night (as talked about here plenty)
  7. Stand firm to the issue with your kids being managers. I didnt know they had NO financial interest…geez, that is a no brainer, they are entitled to NOTHING…especially with horrible attitudes like shown
  8. Find personal solutions to the cash flow problems, sell your cars, jewelry, donate plasma, get a second mortgage whatever to make it temporarily
  9. Focus on generating sales, not worrying about a high price point and too many expensive items on the line
  10. If you have a general P&L, post the numbers for a month and lets see if you are leaking oil somewhere else
  11. Read all Jrokk posts on marketing and plaster the community with materials and screaming deals for your store
😃
 
ok i hope that i am helping here , the town has 7000 you have domino pizza hut and another place that is too many for 7000 people but i could be wrong . first of all is your location easy to get to and located well? do you have better product than pizza hut and domino you could be very competitive on price but are you sure that your product is better maybe that is the area you need to work on
 
Gobs,

I hope the sales are staying up for you! with a little breathing room, I hope you have beena ble to glimpse, way off in the distance, that tiny speck of light at the end of the tunnel 🙂 Really, it sounds like your outlook is changing, and that can make ALL the difference in the world to your customers. thwe restaurant will reflect the personality and attitudes of the ownership/management. Now that you are finding a little return on your effort, I hope customers feel and appreciate the reduction in stress and concern . . . and can bask in the glow of your concern for them and your genuine hospitality.

I hope your littlw bit of wiggle room financially continues to spawn more prioductivity in your marketing campaign. Something is going right, and you’ve certainly done some hard work getting that little bit of success to start growing. Keep feeding the fire.
 
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